<
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/sydney-at-risk-of-being-like-san-francisco-mookhey-warns-20240202-p5f22r.html>
"Treasurer Daniel Mookhey warns a failure to act swiftly on housing
affordability will lead Sydney down the path of San Francisco, where
middle-class workers with suits and iPhones are queuing for food and living in
homeless shelters.
In a rare foray into housing policy, Mookhey said the city had a five- to
10-year window to avert a landed gentry situation, in which only those with
family money could afford property and education was no longer an equaliser.
Amid rebellion from north shore communities over housing density targets, he
said the right to object to change should be balanced with the right to own a
home and urged communities not to fear development.
The government’s plan to tackle the soaring cost of homeownership in Sydney
involves widespread high-rise rezoning, which will allow six-storey blocks
within 400 metres of more than 30 of the city’s train stations from April.
Mookhey will tell Monday’s Sydney Summit, hosted by the Committee for Sydney
think tank and supported by the
Herald, that a healthy democracy and livable
city depend on everyone having a place to call home.
In an interview with this masthead, he warned education’s role as a driver of
social mobility was fading as property ownership increasingly became the
preserve of people with intergenerational money.
“If we want to have an egalitarian middle class in the future then we have to
interrupt that trend and make sure we aren’t inadvertently creating another
landed gentry,” he said.
Cities in the north-west of the United States had become case studies in how
saddling young people with high amounts of student debt and presenting them
with an expensive housing market amid a wider cost of living crisis was tearing
the city apart."
Via
Guardian Australia.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
